Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis has frequently touted Florida’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the number one reason Republican primary voters are choosing him over Donald Trump and other candidates. I’m in. DeSantis has defied local mask mandates, questioned the safety of vaccines, and reopened schools, businesses and beaches before much of the country. He claims the policy saved Florida’s economy while focusing preventative efforts on the elderly and vulnerable.

Or the story goes on. National survey on ‘excess deaths’ published in magazine chemistry this week He throws cold water on Mr. DeSantis’ claims, revealing that the number of coronavirus-related deaths outside of metropolitan areas was likely much higher than originally reported. Like other rural and low-income areas of the United States, especially in the deep South, counties in central Florida and the Panhandle have undergone mass testing and testing for the novel coronavirus in the second year of the pandemic. Despite nationwide efforts, it has suffered a tragically high death toll. Widespread vaccine.

As of March 10th of this year, 86,850 Floridians The state of Florida has the third-highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in the nation, behind Texas and California, according to official tallies. Ultimately, according to scientists and public health experts and study co-author Andrew C. Stokes, a demographer and sociologist at Boston University, Florida’s response to the novel coronavirus It wasn’t as effective as DeSantis and others advertised.

“Ron DeSantis was able to pitch Florida as a success story, but a closer look at the county-level data doesn’t back it up,” Stokes said in an interview. “Much of central Florida and rural areas experienced exceptionally high mortality rates in the second year when vaccines became available and other measures, such as increased access to healthcare, were in place. [COVID] Treatment. “

By comparing the total number of deaths recorded from April 2020 to February 2022 with the number of deaths scientists typically expect for the same period, the researchers found that the number of deaths at the state and county levels “Excess deaths” or “excess deaths” were measured. citizens. Stokes said the method provides a more accurate snapshot of the pandemic’s impact than official death tolls for regions where coronavirus data reporting is variable and fewer sick people die in health facilities. rice field.

In many rural areas, the coroner’s elected officials may not have the deep medical expertise or resources to accurately investigate the cause of death. Stokes said some medical examiners may also be swayed by partisan bias against the coronavirus and the pandemic.Certainly with President Trump and DeSantis systematically neglected pandemic, Dismissal of data professionals and mislead the public while attacking the Democrats to appease far-right pundits and Republican constituencies.

Excess deaths not attributable to COVID-19 may also reflect deaths indirectly related to the pandemic, such as deaths related to avoiding hospitals due to fear of the virus and a significant increase in fatal drug overdoses. There is At the same time, COVID-19 mitigation measures may have reduced the number of deaths from other common illnesses, such as influenza.

“I suspect most of the excess deaths above the official COVID-19 statistics are from COVID-19,” Stokes said. “Studies using official death tolls tend to miss the full picture of the pandemic in the second year, as many of the areas most severely affected by the pandemic in the second year were also those with the poorest monitoring data. .”

The study, which found nearly 1.2 million excess deaths across the United States during the first two years of the pandemic, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 1.1 million Number of deaths due to COVID-19 as of July 1, 2023. Almost half of the excess deaths, an estimated 544,194 lives, were recorded in the second year of the pandemic. At the time, billions of dollars in aid from Congress were flowing to states to provide widespread benefits. Access to COVID-19 testing and vaccines. According to this study, excess mortality in Florida followed broader national trends.

Overall, excess mortality decreased in metropolitan counties but increased in non-metropolitan counties. By July 2021, the southern non-metropolitan counties had the highest cumulative relative excess mortality, even though the initial mortality was concentrated in the northeastern counties of the metropolitan area. These results highlight the need to invest in rural health as the pandemic’s rural impact grows.

“In Western Europe, the second pandemic year was much better,” Stokes said. “Despite increased vaccine uptake, excess mortality continued in the second year, but mortality generally recovered.”

In the United States, the pandemic has highlighted deep inequalities in health care quality and access faced by low-income people and people of color who are disproportionately engaged in “essential” jobs on the frontlines of the pandemic. became. Stokes said one of the most alarming findings was the tragic increase in excess mortality across the rural South during the 2021 delta wave. In many of these areas, even if public health systems existed in the first place, funding for them was cut from state budgets years ago, and conservative politicians (including Florida) refused to expand Medicaid to provide health insurance to more low-income people.

“Rural communities in the South, including black communities, have been severely impacted by failed state policies and failures to support rural health infrastructure, particularly the lack of ‘weapon fire’ in these areas,” Stokes said. said Mr. “Rural America, [equals] Caucasian. Black communities sustain excess COVID-19 deaths in the late stages of the pandemic, reflecting a lack of access. “

Whites across rural Florida and the South have also been hit hard by conservative politicians taking advantage of public backlash against pandemic controls and a vaccine that the Trump administration has spent $18 billion on rapid deployment and free delivery.

“The narrative of the second year of the pandemic is the narrative of increased mortality among whites without a significant drop in death rates among blacks and Hispanics,” Stokes said. ” [racial] The gap narrowed in the second year, but not because the proportion of blacks and Hispanics improved significantly. Rather, it was partisanship and misinformation that caused white mortality to worsen. “

Rural Southwestern and Four Corners counties also saw a disastrous increase in excess mortality in the second year of the pandemic, despite declines in excess mortality in other regions and densely populated areas of the Southwest. was taken. Stokes said this reflected a lack of quality health care facilities in rural areas, especially Native American reservations where people tended to live in remote areas and where sanitation was poor. chronically lack of funds.

“Some counties, like Navajo County, Arizona, have disproportionately large reservations and Native American populations,” Stokes said. “Unfortunately, a combination of social and structural factors has resulted in significantly higher excess mortality even after widespread vaccination.”

Although COVID-19 first hit cities in the Northeast in 2020, by 21 July 2021, excess mortality in the non-metropolitan West and South surpassed the urban Northeast. Cumulative excess mortality was higher in the non-metropolitan South than in any other region through the end of February 2022, including Florida, where excess mortality was higher in rural counties than in cities and suburbs. numbers soared.

Stokes compared Florida’s excess mortality data, and thus DeSantis’s much-touted pandemic policy, with data from Massachusetts and other New England states. Massachusetts and other New England states had longer pandemic restrictions, higher vaccination coverage, and generally better access to low-income healthcare. – People with income.

“One way to really highlight the failure of Florida’s policies is to compare Florida during delta waves to any state in the Mid-Atlantic or New England during delta waves,” Stokes said. . “While Massachusetts saw little increase in excess mortality during the delta, Florida experienced a sharp increase in deaths, especially in rural areas where excess mortality surged relative to other parts of the state. was conspicuous in

The DeSantis presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment by the time this article was published.